Re: The Disneyland Photo of the Day...

Re: The Disneyland Photo of the Day...

Originally Posted by niklj

That is a really nice and smooth B&W conversion, but I think that Tomorrowland definitely benefits from all its neon colors which makes the picture come alive. How do you decide if you're gonna make a picture B&W?

Nice thread, BTW.

I completely agree with you that Tomorrowland should be in color. Afterall, it is supposed to be the future and Black & White doesn't fit the time period. Your question brings up an excellent point for another post. I will definitely do a post soon about Black & White or Sepia photos and where they work. It's already got me thinking.......

Re: The Disneyland Photo of the Day...

Originally Posted by SoCalFan

These are great. I love reading all the tips. Man though just so much goes into it. I would love to really get good at this.

Thank you. I hope the tips come across so they are easy to follow. I really do believe that I am learning more by doing this than I am passing on. There definitely is a lot of work that goes into the photos. It is getting easier and easier the more I do it. As soon as I learn how to do one thing, I see something else that I want to learn and there goes two more hours.

I am finding that the more I improve a photo to make it the best it can be, the more enjoyment I get out of them. The better they get, the more I look at them.

Re: The Disneyland Photo of the Day...

I LOVE photography, looking at photographs and taking them, but I'm an amateur photographer at best. I should get photoshop as it would improve my photo's and let me put some personal flair to them. And my camera isn't all nice and fancy either. I find these tips easy to read and understand and are great. Thanks for the daily post!

Re: The Disneyland Photo of the Day...

7-26-10Today’s “Disneyland Photo Tip of the Day” is actually going to be a series of photos and was inspired by a question from “niklj”. After yesterdays post niklj asked “How do you decide if you are going to make a picture black and white?”

This is an OUTSTANDING question because monochromatic photography is slowly becoming a lost art and it really made me sit down and think about something that I’ve never really put much thought into before. I’ve only done it when I was playing around in Photoscape because I can turn a photo into a Black & White or Sepia with 1 click of a button. Most of them never did anything for me so I would just hit UNDO and forget about it.

I should preface this by saying that I have no formal training or education in photography, so the only knowledge I have is from what I have read or learned by trial and error. I did a bit of photographic soul searching and came up with the following thoughts.

There are several reasons why and certain times when a monochromatic photo can be much more interesting, dramatic or powerful than a color photo. Fortunately for all of us, Disneyland provides us with lots of opportunities to experiment with it.

These are just my opinions but here is what I think.

Black & White and Sepia Tones work well when you are trying to portray a feel of nostalgia from a certain period of time. Black & White works very well on Architecture and situations where you want to bring out details in textural objects.

Here are some examples where Black & White gives what was a plain and somewhat boring photo more drama and impact.

The Disneyland Hotel and my attempted Homage to the master of architecture photography, Julius Shulman.

This picture of the tree near the entrance of Disneyland was pretty boring in color, but Black & White really brought out the detail and texture of it.

The candle sconce in the Haunted Mansion seems a lot more dramatic in Black & White than it did in color.

Sepia Tone is a great one for Disneyland because Main St. USA, Adventureland and Frontierland all represent a period of time best portrayed by the warmer Sepia tone. Here are some examples of those.

This is one of my favorites because it really has that turn of the century feel.

Even DCA has lots of locations where a Sepia Tone can make a photo shine.

Both Black & White and Sepia can also improve some photos that aren’t very impressive simply because of a lackluster sky like we sometimes have here in Southern California, during the months called May Gray or June Gloom. Here are a few examples of pictures that were ok in color but Black & White or Sepia made the sky more interesting, thus making the photo more interesting.

When converting any color photos to Black & White or Sepia, it is usually necessary to increase the contrast a bit. Also adding a slight vignetting to them will really give the proper period feel to the picture.

Note: If using Photoscape, it is very easy to do this. There is a small button for Black & White with one for Sepia right next to it. In the Filter drop down menu there is a section for Vignetting with 10 choices of different intensities. It is important to know that the Vignette is a black color so if doing a Sepia tone, do the Vignette first so it turns that black shading to a brown color. If you do the Sepia first, you have a brown tinted photo with black corners and it doesn’t look quite right.

I hope this inspires you all and gives you a new way of thinking about taking pictures at Disneyland.

Re: The Disneyland Photo of the Day...

Originally Posted by DisneyIndy7

All of those pictures look fantastic! I agree the sepia and black and white works well with Disneyland.

I'm glad you like them. I had a lot of fun doing this one. I enjoyed it so much I keep wanting to go through all 10,000+ of my Disneyland photos and see which ones I can do it too. "MUST NOT GIVE IN, MUST NOT GIVE IN"!!!

Re: The Disneyland Photo of the Day...

Yay! I love this update. I'm in love with monochromatic photography. Thank you. Pacific Wharf is one of my favorite areas in DCA to take monochromo pictures

Ooh yeah! Pacific Wharf is a great place for it. I had a few from there too but didn't use them, mainly because I forgot about them. Maybe they will be a post for another day... Hmmm...

The more I do the Monochrome thing, the more I am enjoying it too. One of these days I will actually think about the photo being in Black & White or Sepia before I even take it. I can hear Pacific Wharf beckoning me now...

Re: The Disneyland Photo of the Day...

Great update, Hot Sauce. One of the things I love about Disneyland is that you can make the photos look authentically vintage because the details are so accurate. Those were definitely great examples, totally answered my question. Thanks!

Re: The Disneyland Photo of the Day...

I chose these pictures because they are some of my all time favorite pictures, and well, who doesn’t love baby ducks. I took them one afternoon when heading into Pixie Hollow to take pictures of Tinkerbell. The ducks were on the bank of the pond right near the entrance and all the colorful flowers provided a beautiful setting for them. I couldn’t have picked a better spot to photograph them if I put them there myself.

I only had my 50mm lens on which doesn’t have a zoom on it, so I was trying to get really close to them without scaring them away. I sat down on the ground right against the little railing and used a gap in the flowers as a tunnel to shoot through. All I needed then was for the ducks to come into the little clearing between the flowers. I sat there for about 5 minutes before my patience was rewarded. The two babies came into view and stood there while I snapped a few pictures.

The mother duck wanted to see what the heck I was doing so close to her children and came over to make sure I wasn’t any threat. She checked me out and stood there long enough for me to get a nice family portrait.

The lesson in these pictures is simply this; sometimes you need to just sit down, relax and be patient for a nice picture to walk in front of you. It is also a good example of shooting through the flowers so they provide a pretty frame for the actual subject of the photo.

Post Processing: It was mid afternoon when I took these and I was facing west so the ducks were well lit but there was a slight shadow on them because the sun was behind them. In Photoshop Elements I used the Selection Tool and selected the faces and the other dark areas on the ducks and then used the Lighten Shadows slider to lighten them up and bring out their details. For the picture of the just the babies through the flowers, I also cropped it a little tighter to bring them a little closer to the viewer. That was it, another precious moment at Disneyland achieved by sitting on the ground and waiting for the right picture to come to me.

Re: The Disneyland Photo of the Day...

I've seen a bunch of photographers who take fantastic pictures but over-saturate the crap out of them. You didn't do that here and it makes your pictures that much better. Thank you and keep 'em coming.